Roxanne's Cracker Barrel Arson
by joanhello
Summary: AU inspired by Setepenre-Set's story Safe If We Stand Close Together, where Roxanne and Megamind are childhood friends, and by a prompt on Tumblr.


The Secret Government Agency That Takes Aliens Away has had the legal right to take young Syx/Megamind from the time he landed on Earth but behind-the-scenes intervention by the Scotts has always prevented them from actually doing it. When he is ten, they notice that the Scotts are sending someone to personally check on the boy only once every three months. So they figure they can take him just after the quarterly visit from the Scotts' representative, return him just before the next visit, and the Scotts won't find out until after the fact. Easier to ask forgiveness than to ask permission and all that. They set up a temporary secret lab where they can examine and experiment on him in Metro City, choosing a closed-down Cracker Barrel next to an expressway interchange near the edge of town, for its convenient yet isolated location and so they won't call attention to themselves by building something new. Then they move in, wave their legal paperwork in the Warden's face, and force him to turn the boy over to them.

He is only held for a night or two before he escapes, but he has become so traumatized and paranoid that he trusts no adults. Already skilled with lockpicks, he lets himself into Roxanne's father's apartment late at night, sneaks into her room, wakes her up, and tells her everything.

She is knowledgeable enough to recognize that some of what was done to him falls under the definition of torture and naive enough to think that exposure of the secret lab will raise a public outcry that will get the place shut down and make him safe, at least in the short run. They come up with the notion of using arson, so that the fire department will see the inside of the lab. They also recognize that she will have to be the one who takes the risk of getting caught because she is human and white and her dad is a lawyer and all these things will act to mitigate whatever punishment is dealt out. So he helps her plan it and acquire the means, but she goes alone on her bicycle to do it while he hides in her bedroom. (There may be a subplot here about rescuing Minion but, on the other hand, Minion may still be safe in a tank in the Warden's office.)

The building doesn't actually have much security, so she is able to set it ablaze and get away. What disappoints them is the fact that the early news coverage makes no mention of a secret lab. So they decide to get more publicity. First, Roxanne records Syx on video as he tells the story, using the procedure for taking a deposition that she learned from her father. Then, figuring that as soon as her involvement is known, the people who kidnapped him will go to the apartment looking for him, he leaves and goes deeper into hiding and doesn't tell her or anyone else where. But it will be someplace with Internet access so he can keep on top of the story.

Roxanne has already hacked into her father's email account so she can arrange an excused absence from her summer arts program any time she wants to. She arranges one that same night. When her dad wakes up the next morning, none the wiser as he was none the wiser about Syx hiding in her room, she goes along with being dropped off in front of the building where the program is and letting him see her walk in. She goes out by another door and takes public transit to the neighborhood of the burned-out Cracker Barrel. There she takes photos of the interior that clearly show the remains of lab equipment and child-sized restraints. She goes home, adds the news story about the fire and then her photos to the end of Syx's deposition, and uploads the result to YouTube. Then she puts the link to the video into an email and starts sending the email to news organizations, as many as she can find addresses for online. She is still doing this when the apartment door is kicked in.

She immediately dials 911, says "Someone's breaking in," and gives the address. Two short-haired white men in black suits burst into her room.

"I've called the police," she says. "They're on their way."

One of them pulls a pistol from beneath his jacket. "Where's you little blue friend?" he asks.

She raises her hands, one of them still holding her phone, very aware that the 911 dispatcher is still listening. "I don't know! Please don't shoot me!"

The other man steps close, takes the phone away from her, and speaks into it. "This is a Federal investigation. No emergency services are needed." Then he closes it and puts it in his pocket. "Put your hands behind your back." She obeys. He restrains her, then without warning slaps an adhesive gag over her mouth. She can hear thumping and more men's voices through the open door.

"This way," says the man with the gun, pointing. He follows her out into the living room, which has been thoroughly searched. The couch and chairs are upside down. The cabinets are open. Books are pulled off the shelves. She can hear thumping and more men's voices through the open doors as the kitchen, her room, and her father's room are searched. Now she is really shaken. She had been prepared to experience danger herself, but she had thought her father would not be touched.

After a very long ten minutes, the two men who burst into her room and two more cast from the same mold (one of them looks interracial but talks with exactly the same speech pattern as the white ones) assemble around her in the living room. They have just concluded that "He's not here," when they are interrupted by two short-haired Hispanic men in black suits, a blonde woman in a grey pantsuit carrying a briefcase, and a boy she knows: her and Syx's classmate, Wayne Scott. The woman tears into the first group of men, refusing to believe their credentials, refusing to let then take Roxanne anywhere, and insisting that they wait for the police and for Roxanne's father. Wayne goes to Roxanne.

"Roxie, are you hurt?"

She shakes her head.

"Is Syx okay?"

She shruggs and makes the vowels for "I don't know," through her gag. Then she tilts her head, frowned in confusion, and makes the vowels for "What are you doing here?" pushing her chin at him on "you" for emphasis, hoping he understands.

"It's too noisy here. Let's talk on the roof." He hugs her firmly and lifts off.

The man nearest to her shouts, "Hey! Get back here!"

The woman says, "Put that away! Those are children and you -" The adults' voices fade away with distance as they fly down the hall and up the stairs. Roxanne has been carried by Wayne before, so she is only afraid until they are out of any possible direct line of fire from the apartment door.

They rise through the stairwell. In front of the door at the top, he sets her down, opens it, and they walk out onto the roof. Bracing his back against it and digging his heels into the gravel so that he forms a kind of living doorstop, he frees her hands.

"My mom said some people kidnapped Syx," he explains while she removes the gag, "but he escaped and was hiding in this apartment. He told me to take Mrs. Trevalien and Paco and Esteban and come and get him and bring him to our house where he'll be safe. But I didn't see him. He's not here, is he?"

"No. He wanted to go into hiding before I uploaded the video. I don't know where he is."

"What video?"

"I took a deposition of his testimony about being taken away from the prison where he lives and held prisoner in a lab and put through all these nasty tests. It wasn't a real deposition because there weren't any lawyers present, but I videoed it and put it on YouTube."

"Show me." Wayne pulls out his phone, not an ordinary talk-and-text cell phone like hers but a smartphone that can get on the Internet. (At this time they are still so expensive that hardly anybody has one.) He touches the screen a few times, then hands it to her. It shows the YouTube website, with a keyboard at the bottom. She brings up the video. As it starts playing, tiny in the top third or so of the screen, he takes it back and holds it sideways. In a few seconds the image turns so it fills the little screen. Roxanne is momentarily impressed, but after a minute or two she is only halfway paying attention, so she notices when a siren that had been just part of the background noise of the city grows louder and louder and then stops, in front of their building from the sound of it. She goes to the edge of the roof and looks down. On the small lawn, illuminated by the red and blue flashing lights, is a bench that she recognizes as part of the patio furniture at Scott Mansion.

"Did you fly those people here, those grown-ups who came with you?" she'd asks him when he comes over to her.

"Yeah. I'm supposed to bring them and Syx back with me, but I don't know what I'm supposed to do if we can't find him."

"How did you know to bring them here?"

"My mom sent us. I think our social secretary must have seen the video. She watches online for news about my classmates. Mostly it's, you know, birthdays and people moving and stuff. And she's good at tracing IP addresses."

"But how did you know that those other men were here searching and grabbing me?"

"I didn't. I looked through the walls and saw them when we landed. I knew I had to rescue you first, because you were the only one in danger."

"Oh. Well, thank you. I'm glad you, like, dropped everything and came. That was nice of you."

"No big deal. I was just having a costume fitting."

"Halloween costume?"

"No, superhero costume. I'm going to be Defender of the City."

"You mean Defender in Training, right? Like, you can't actually be defender until you're eighteen?"

"No, they're making an exception for me, 'cause I have more superpowers than anybody else on Earth. And..." He looks a little uncomfortable. "You know, Sky Lion isn't doing so good."

Roxanne nods. The whole city knows, and is a bit embarrassed, that their current Defender is struggling. "So, will you be able to stay in school, or -"

The door is opened by a policeman with a Eurasian look to him. "Hey, Wayne." His speech pattern is the same as theirs.

"Hey, Officer Froelig."

He comes over to them and sits on the little wall around the edge of the roof. He smiles in a way that means he's trying to be friendly. "You're Roxanne Ritchi, right?"

She nods.

"And you live here in Apartment 5-B, with your dad?"

"Only in the summer and on weekends. On school days I live with my mom."

"Roxanne, I'd like you to tell me what just happened in your apartment, in your own words."

"First I want to have an attorney present."

Officer Froelig's smile deepens, like he finds this amusing. "Only suspects have the right to an attorney. You're not being accused of anything."

"By the time this is over, I will be."

#####

CHILD GENIUS CONFESSES TO ARSON

The headline frustrates Roxanne. She wanted the story to be about the secret lab and the mistreatment Syx had suffered there, but instead they're making it about her and her crime. And her IQ. Wayne let that slip when the police were getting everybody's statements. At the time she thought it might help, but it has turned out to be just another distraction.

At least they did mention the "possible" secret lab in the third paragraph, but she knew that that wasn't good. She knows that most people who read newspapers just skim. They look at the headlines, maybe the first sentence or two, but only the really dedicated ones read whole news stories.

The same newspaper also has the official announcement of Wayne's debut as Metro Boy. He is named Co-Defender rather than Defender in Training. There is a picture of him in his costume.

When she and Syx were planning all this, she had planned to confess at some point, so he had tried to prepare her for the consequences by telling her as much as he could about what to expect in jail. It's mostly a relief, but slightly disappointing, that she is not sent to jail but instead is remanded to her father's custody. (He was angry until he heard the whole story. Then he said he was proud of her.)

And then the judge calls for a recess and tells Roxanne and her parents to meet with her in her office.

When they get there, they find, in addition to the judge, two men in suits, one white and one South Asian, a white man in the uniform of a police lieutenant, the prison warden who she knows is Syx's legal guardian, and both of the city's Defenders. There is a medicinal smell that she knows is coming from Sky Lion. She also knows what they're doing here. Any agreement made in the presence of a city's Defender is, in effect, law.

The judge introduces everyone. The two men in suits turn out to be lawyers for the secret government agency. The police lieutenant is there representing the city government. Then she addresses Roxanne's parents.

"The lieutenant, the agency, and the warden have agreed to the following: in exchange for you dropping all charges relating to the invasion by their agents of 327 Larch Street, Unit 5-B, and the manhandling of your daughter, Roxanne, and the agreement by the Ritchi family, the alien boy known as Syx Blue, and the warden, to refrain from any activity that would draw more publicity to the incident and to the arson at the former Cracker Barrel restaurant at 1833 Service Road, including the taking down of any relevant online media, the agency and the city agree to drop all charges relating to said arson, and the agency waives its rights regarding Syx under the Potentially Dangerous Aliens Act. He will be free to return to the Metro City Prison for the Criminally Gifted and to his normal activities."

"It worked." Roxanne tries to stop herself, so the words pop out of her in a whisper instead of a shriek of joy and amazement, but in the close quarters of the little office, everyone hears. No one responds, but her father smiles. Her mother doesn't look so happy. They turn to each other.

"What do you think?" he asks in a low voice.

"Let's just get this over with," she replies in the same tone. "Agreed." Both of them turn back toward the judge.

"Agreed," they both say aloud, not in unison.

"Then sign here." The judge pointed to a document on her desk. Only when they bend over to sign does Roxanne see the fly in the ointment.

"But how do we tell Syx? He said he would watch the media to know when to come out of hiding. If there's no publicity, how will he find out?"

"We'll be on the lookout for him," said the lieutenant. "How hard can it be to find one ten-year-old boy?"

"You don't understand," said Roxanne. "Syx is the only person in the school with a higher IQ than me. Higher than the grown-ups, even. Just like Wayne has the most superpowers in town, Syx has the most intelligence."

Everyone in the room looks at Metro Boy.

"I can find him," he says. "I know what he smells like. I'll give him a copy of the agreement. Then he'll know he's safe."

In the parking lot outside the courthouse, her mother says "I want to take Roxanne back to Overdell for school." Overdell, Wisconsin, is the small town where her mother grew up. Roxanne has only been there for visits.

"What?" Roxanne, flying high on the success of her and Syx's plan, is caught off guard for a moment. Then it sinks in. "No!" Her father looks at her mother, frowning.

"Hear me out," her mom continues. "The agreement to end publicity just applies to the media, not to gossip. This has already been in the papers. From now on, as long as she lives continuously in Metro City, she'll be the arson girl. It will come up every time someone mentions her. It will affect the way teachers grade her. It might affect the way potential employers see her in job interviews. If she stays away for a few years, then it will die down and people will forget. Even if she comes back, say, for college, most people will have forgotten by then and it won't count against her the way it would if she'd been here all along."

Roxanne usually objects when here mother talks about her as if she weren't there, and he father usually backs her up, but now they're both too busy parsing what her mother is saying and realizing, to their dismay, that she's probably right.

And so Roxanne and Syx don't have the celebratory reunion they'd been looking forward to, because by the time he comes home, she is already on the way to Overdell. Which means that Syx's next project is a flying machine that can carry him and Minion to Overdell for visits.


End file.
